Yet They Walk Among Us
by Sunburned-Stickperson
Summary: The supernatural have always walked among the humans. It was just a matter of time before they revealed themselves. Two different stories involving Altair and Desmond.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Altair**

**Chapter 2: Desmond**

* * *

It's been a long day, and he's sweating heavily under all his armor. Even the horse seems to be slowing as the dust kicks up with every hoof it plants on the ground. It's like riding in an oven, but perhaps he's just tired and hot and complaining. His armor sticks and pulls at his skin, threatens to peel his skin back in layers as the sweat rolls down his skin and makes him feel all kinds of gross. It's way too hot to be out, but he has to get back. He's been away too long. He rolls off his gloves and takes off the arm guards, fighting be damned. He draws the hood a little farther down to protect his face from the sun and undoes the belts and the sashes to alleviate some of the stifling heat. He stuffs them into the saddle bags on the horse. Once he gets to the nearest horses' station (they seem to be everywhere with the Templars crawling about), he will dismount, leave the horse to its companions, and then crawl into a haystack and strip down to cool off. The air shimmers around them with heat, making the pathway farther down look like a mirage. The trees and the plants seem to be wilting under the heat, but perhaps he's just a touch dehydrated and over-tired.

As luck has it, the horse finds its way to a shaded well, and the relief of stepping into the shade is almost overwhelming. He takes a few minutes before he slides off and almost slumps on the ground. He strips off parts of his armor, looking more human with each discarded piece, and pulls out his skins to fill and drink after pulling off the riding gear on the horse. There's a little bit of water left in one of the skins, and he unties it to finish it off.

And then he notices the kid peering over the edge of the well, an upset frown on his face and looking about ready to cry. He paces over and sees the bucket at the bottom of the well, floating atop the water, and the rope frayed. He frowns. More work for him. He sighs, and the kid jumps.

"Sorry, sir, I didn't see you there. I was trying to figure out how to get the bucket up. I'm really—"

He offers out the last of his water skin. "There's not much in there, but it can tide you over until we fix this."

The boy blinks. "You don't have to, sir."

"I'm sure. Take the skin. You're still a child."

He waits until the boy snatches the water skin, then walks over to the horse. Maybe the Templar he had stolen it from had something he could use in the saddlebag. He rifled through it, finding a horseshoe pick in the bags. It's too damn hot to be doing this stuff. He stares at the horseshoe pick, wondering if it might be of any use, and then he realizes, after several minutes worth of staring, that the hooked end could hook the bucket.

He takes it over to the well, and in a heat-induced bout of idiocy, almost tries to reach over the edge of the well walls to hook the bucket from where he is. The shade helps, but it's still no match for the oppressive burning of the sun. He growls, grabbing the rope and pulling it up. The kid is sitting there, watching, the water skin held just below his lips, and Altaïr briefly wants to throw himself into the well as he fumbles with the knot to tie the horsepick to the rope.

When he drops it back down, he snarls when he sees that it's too short by about an arm length.

Then he remembers the red sash he took off, and fetches that, measures out an arm length, and pulls up the rope. He fumbles with the knot again, untying the pick, tying the sash, tying the pick—there's too many damn knots and his fingers are heavy and clumsy in the heat. His vision is beginning to swim a little, but that might just be because there's the promise of water so close. He swears at the pick when he almost loses it down the well, and quickly ties it shortly thereafter, hopping on the edge of the well walls as he drops the pick to go fishing.

It takes far too long for his liking, but eventually, he snags the handle of the bucket. The boy has been watching the entire time. Altaïr should have just skipped the well and kept going, finished the water in his own skin instead of going through all the hassle of pulling up this damn bucket. He finally draws it up and grunts at the weight of the water in the bucket.

He sets it on the edge of the well and fills his other skins, offering the first to the boy without a word and then retying the bucket onto the sash to fill the bucket again for the horse. He makes sure the boy and the horse have had water before he lets himself polish off a skin and refills the empty ones again. He draws up a bucket and splashes his face, rubs down his neck, and he can feel his sensibilities returning at the (remarkably) freezing water. He likes it.

He straightens and turns to look at the boy, who's smiling ear-to-ear.

"Thank you—"

He cuts the boy off with a wave of his hand. The little boy laughs, and dissolves into a golden light, causing Altaïr to blink.

And when the well looks like a bull ran through, the edge of the well destroyed, the tree with several giant holes in it, and the ground upturned, it's certainly not because Altaïr was _pissed_ he had wasted water on a _mirage_.

And when he rides off after a nap in the nearby haystack and gets into trouble with a Templar who corners him at the edge of a cliff that would kill him if he fell, he falls to his knees when an _angel_ appears and sends the man running—most certainly _not _because the angel wears the same face as the boy he helped earlier.

Maria doesn't seemed surprised when he tells her, but Malik starts calling him "angel boy" and teases him about hallucinating.

Altaïr knows what he saw.


	2. Chapter 2

Desmond had always been special. Always. He never realized it, because he had been under the impression that imaginary friends were okay.

And he had a whole slew of them.

They were all little kids with wings, glowing golden and little balls of energy. They took care of him when his father was abusive, told him stories of the wondrous woods just beyond the Farm. They filled his life with merriment and joy. They watched over him, protected him from bullies, made him see things that others said weren't real.

He realized after running away that they were fairies.

He never saw them again after running away. It broke his heart, because he had squandered his one precious gift, his best friends. He truly had lost everything when he ran away. It broke his heart, to know that his friends couldn't find him again, that he couldn't ever see them again because they would endanger him with their magical workings, so he had to keep running, to keep ahead of them so they wouldn't track him down. He was miserable the whole time he ran.

And as he felt the life being drained away from him in the final Temple, he hit a plateau where the pain and the numbness leveled out, making him feel empty. He turned to watch his body fall to the ground. Everything seemed so much bigger now. He looked at his hands, blinking in surprise, and realized they were child's hands. He looked at the rest of himself. He was a child again.

He hears a high-pitched "hehe!" and turns to try to find the familiar laugh, seeing nothing but a dash of gold rushing through his vision.

"Found you!" comes the childish outburst, and he jumps out of the way of the small golden orb that darts past him and lands on the pedestal.

He blinks again.

"Found you, Desmond!" comes another cry, and soon there's a chorus of merry cries and golden orbs dancing all around him. "Found you! Found you! You're it, Desmond!"

He giggles. It sounds strange to his ears, but it's a fully-belly giggle, a child-like giggle, and he covers his mouth his hands as he giggles. He hasn't done that in years. His friends were back. His friends had returned for him.

"We found you, Desmond!" they cry again, and a portal opens, giving him a glimpse of the most beautiful field of flowers and forest he's ever seen.

"Come on, Desmond!" he hears chanted, and he watches his friends turn into their monster forms, the green-blue patchy skin that vaguely reminds him of Gollum from Lord of Rings, and dart through the portal.

"Wait up!" he cries, chasing after them and feeling free for once. He hasn't heard this voice since he ran away.

He's a little kid again. He's being given a chance to live his life over again.

He may never understand that he'll never be an adult again, but as he crosses the threshold to the portal, he's surrounded by his old friends and new friends, and they make him giggle and squeal and give him back the happiness he never felt on the run. He may never understand that he'll never be human again, but as he feels himself grow a pair of the dainty little wings and watches himself shrink into the same size as his friends, he's got happiness welling in guts to make him feel more alive than he ever did in life. He may never understand that he'll never be able to return "home," but as he looks around for the first time, he realizes he'll never want to go home.

_Come away, oh human child,_

_To the waters and the wild,_

_With a fairy hand-in-hand,_

_For the world's more full of weeping, _

_Than ye should understand._

He giggles as he's led by the hand into the forest, to a berry bush of bright red, juicy-looking sweets.

_Up an airy mountain,_

_Down a rushy glen,_

_We daren't go a-hunting, _

_For fear of little men._

Whispers fill the air as he tries a berry as big as his (new) head, and he's never tasted anything better.

Damn Vidic.

Damn Lucy.

Damn Shaun.

Damn Rebecca.

Damn William.

Damn the Animus.

He giggles again as the juice from the berries spill down his shirt, and he can feel a dark mischief rising within him, the same dark mischief that always got him trouble, that made him withdraw from the other kids on the Farm and from his father and mother. He turns to look out over the hills and the fields, over the vast stretches of forest and the giant river that burbles merrily a ways away.

_Over hill, over dale,_

_Thorough bush, thorough brier,_

_Over park, over pale,_

_Thorough flood, thorough fire!_

They watch the world burn with a giggle, watch some weird woman start to destroy it. They play with the new little girl, the next little girl, their brand new friend with an abusive father and no human friends.

_I have a fairy by my side _

_Which says I must not sleep, _

_When once in pain I loudly cried _

_It said, "You must not weep."_

They hug her cheek when she trips, calming her, and heal the wound.

But when the weird woman tries to subjugate their new friend, they destroy her.

And the three adults who are trying to stop her stare at them, they merely dance around them, laughing and teasing, making it rain and thunder and the plants grow to wild proportions, and their new friend giggles and claps. The three call out one of their names, Desmond's name, but they're too far gone, and they're much too happy in this life, full of merriment and joy, berries and play. They lit upon the nose of the one with the glasses, and they laugh at the shocked look. They wave.

"Bye now!" they call, and they vanish through the portal, leaving the dead body of the weird woman and the roses climbing all over the three adults.

They take their new friend with them to the past to collect the next child.

* * *

**Aaaaaaand... that's all for this one. I have a couple of unfinished stories, but I haven't written much in these past few months. I'm starting to get a little frustrated. These were all just stored on my flashdrive. XD**

**thanks for sticking with me!**


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